


Over And Over And Over Again

by Harukawa



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:11:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukawa/pseuds/Harukawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching the boy you love die is enough to break you. </p>
<p>Watching it happen in an endless loop is enough to push you into the depths of madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over And Over And Over Again

**[April 4th, Loop 70]**   


“Hey... Time?” Arc glances back at him, head tilted slightly as a confused expression settles on his face. “You’ve been pretty on edge today. Well... More than usual. Is something going on?”  


“...You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Time mutters in response. And it’s true, because he _has_ tried to tell Arc before, only to be dismissed every time with a “ _What’s gotten into you?_ ” or a “ _That sort of thing can’t happen._ ”. And Arc wasn’t exactly _wrong_ , by all rights this strange phenomenon should have been impossible. Unfortunately for him, that didn’t seem to matter one bit.  


“...So you just aren’t going to tell me?” Arc frowns, crossing his arms. “You’ve always got to be so difficult, Time. How many times to I have to tell you that...” And there Arc goes, lecturing him again on how they were a couple now, and how Time should open up to him more. He’s heard this _exact_ conversation a hundred times already, maybe more, it was getting hard to keep track. He already knows what happens next.  


“So if you would just-- ...Huh?” Arc cuts his speech short, and Time looks away. He can’t bring himself to watch. Not this. Not again.  


There’s a cry of pain from Arc that soon turns into an agonised scream. Blood splatters on the ground, glistening in the sunlight. The screaming stops. The world goes black.

**[April 4th, Loop 138]**

He jolts upright in bed, taking a moment to steady his breathing and allow his racing heart to slow itself back down. He doesn’t bother looking at the time and date, he already knows it’s 9AM on April 4th, the same time he always wakes up. The same day he always goes through. The day Arc dies.

Time loops. They weren’t supposed to exist outside of fiction, just scary stories that were passed along to dissuade others from probing too far into the mysteries of time travel. He’d never given them any thought, never bothered to include them in his calculations. Maybe he should have. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if he’d been more careful.

“...Time..?” Arc asks, his voice a tired mumbles as he slowly sits up in bed. “...You okay?” Arc rubs at his eyes, yawning and stretching before properly settling his attention on Time. “...Did you have another nightmare?”  


“...Yeah.” If you could call it that, this living hell he was being forced to go through.  


“You need to talk about it?”  


“...No.” He didn’t even want to _think_ about it, let alone talk. Losing the one you care about over and over again... that wasn’t the sort of thing you could just talk through, was it? Images of Arc’s death dance across his vision until he forcefully shakes his head, willing the thoughts away. “...I’ll be fine.” he eventually mumbles, pulling Arc into an embrace. The other makes a vague noise of confusion, but returns the gesture moments later. “Let’s just... Stay like this for a little while... Okay?”  


He kisses Arc. Once, twice, again, again. He hopes against hope that maybe this time something will change.

_‘Please. Just let me have this much.’_   


**[April 4th, Loop 264]**

He clutches at his head as he wakes up, Arc’s screaming still ringing in his ears. Fingers clutch at hair and nails dig into his scalp, tears leaking from his eyes as he realises he’s started over _again,_ that there is no escaping this hell.

“...Time..?” And there’s Arc’s voice, saying the same thing he always says when he wakes up, that same worried look on his face. “...You okay?”  


“No.” Time whispers, fingers curling and uncurling in his hair. His voice trembles as he speaks, words almost too rushed to understand. “Make it stop, Arc. I just want it to stop. Just tell me what I have to do to make it _stop_.”  


“Make what stop..? Time, what are you going on about?”  


“You. _This.”_ He slowly lowers his hands to his sides. “I’ve tried to tell you before... You never listen.”  


“I’ll listen.” Arc assures him. “I promise.”  


A bitter laugh. “...You’ve said that before, too.” He clenches his hand into a fist, fingernails digging into the skin of his palm hard enough to draw blood. “I’m stuck in some hellish time loop. Stuck watching you die over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and--” A manic edge creeps into his voice as he repeats the phrase like a broken record, a faraway look in his eyes.

“Time.” Arc places one hand on his shoulder and shakes him gently, to no avail. “Time!” He tries again, this time forcefully shaking Time until he finally snaps out of it. “Time. It was just a bad dream, okay? Just a dream.”  


Something inside of him finally breaks upon hearing those words again, those words Arc always swore he’d never say yet always did. “...Yeah.” He laughs, a desperate, pathetic sound. The laugh of someone gone mad.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just a bad dream.”  


**[April 4th, Loop 321]**

“Time, what the hell has been going on with you today?!” Arc is yelling at him again. Yelling at him for ignoring him, for avoiding him. He’s heard the speech a million times before. “You won’t even _look_ at me, what’s gotten into you?”  


“...You’re about to die.” Time mumbles.  


“Are you even-- ...What?” Arc gives him a bewildered look. “...What are you going on about?”  


“...This speech. This setting. In exactly sixty-five seconds, one of your dynamos will malfunction and explode.”  


“That’s ridic--”  


“I’ll offer to save you. You won’t believe me. You’ll die.”  


Arc blinks several times, an unreadable expression on his face. “...Then save me.”

Time doesn’t quite manage to mask his surprise. He hasn’t gotten that answer before, not once in the countless number of times he’s been through this scenario. “...It won’t matter.” He says that, _knows_ that, but when the time comes, when he knows it’s about to happen, he acts. He lunges forward, grabbing the dynamo he knows will kill Arc.

He pushes Arc away from him, dynamo clutched tightly in his hands. The explosion goes off, and an unbelievable amount of pain shoots through his body. He’s vaguely aware that someone is screaming. It takes him what feels like an eternity to realise that it’s _him._

His vision fades to black.

He’s not sure why he thought this time would be any different.

**[April 4th, Loop ???]**

He’s not sure what number loop he’s on any longer, not sure that he cares. He’s not himself now, not sure who he is or if he even matters.

He doesn’t talk to Arc now, simply ignores him, avoids him, _hurts_ him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing changes. It’s always the same.

He wants to die.

**[April 4th, Loop ???]**

He doesn’t clutch at his head this time. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t cling to Arc for comfort, doesn’t hurt himself. What’s the point, after all, when nothing he ever did mattered?

“...Time..?” Arc’s voice. He can’t stand it any longer, can’t stand listening to it, can’t stand it repeating the same damn phrases over and over and over again day after day after day after day. “...You _\--?!_ ”  


He lunges towards Arc, hands wrapping around the other’s neck as he pushes him down against the bed, straddling Arc to keep him pinned in place. “It’s _your_ fault.” His hands squeeze tighter as Arc desperately claws at him. “It’s your fault your fault your fault _your fault your fault_ ** _your fault_**.” His grip tightens with every iteration, mouth slowly curving into a grin as Arc’s struggling becomes weaker and weaker.

“I love you, Arc.” he mumbles. “But you keep doing this to me. You won’t make it _stop,_ it just keeps happening again and again and again and--” His voice breaks. “It’s you! It’s always you! I can’t do this anymore! Stop _doing_ this to me! Just make it _stop_ already!” The life finally fades from Arc’s eyes, and Time’s vision blurs. He clutches at his head, watching his own tears fall onto Arc’s lifeless body as he waits for the reset.

**[April 5th]**

He jolts upright in bed once more, tears already forming once more as he remembers the last loop. His fingers reach up to tangle in his own hair as he waits for Arc’s voice, for that same greeting he always gives.

It never comes.

It never comes because it isn’t April 4th any longer. It never comes because he finally broke free. It never comes because Arc’s body is still lying lifeless beside him. 

“...Arc..?” He slowly lowers his trembling hands, gently touching Arc. He recoils once he realises how _cold_ the other is.  


_Because he’s dead. Because I **killed** him._

“...I didn’t... This wasn’t... supposed to... I di-didn’t mean to...” He’d just wanted to break free, hadn’t he? At any cost? Had that been right?  


“I-I’ll.... I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it I’ll fix it I’ll fix it I’ll fix it I’ll fix you I’ll bring you back I promise, please, please, _please,_ just...” Time travel. That was what he’d been working on, right? He could go back, he could fix this. Right?  


“I’ll fix it. I’ll do whatever it takes. I promise.”  


**[???]**

“Wrong.” He mutters to himself. “Wrong, wrong, wrong, _wrong,_ _ **wrong!**_ ” He was always off, it was always the wrong timeline, _something_ was always wrong. How was he supposed to _fix_ things when things were always _wrong_?  


“T-Time..?” He whirls around to face the speaker, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. It’s Arc, but it’s also not. It’s not _his_ Arc, it’s not the _right_ Arc. This one doesn’t matter. This one is irrelevant. He only wants _his._ “Time, what... What _happened_ to you..?”  


“Time this, Time that...” A growl. “Don’t _call_ me that!” He materialises a ball of dark energy in one hand, electricity crackling over-top the swirling orb of chaos. Time was a name he hadn’t heard in ages, not since he’d started rampaging through timelines. “Diabolic” some called him. “Esper” said others. Some put the two together. He didn’t care.  


“Don’t talk like you know me. Don’t talk like you’re _him.”_ He laughs, releasing the energy in his hand and watching as it easily sends Arc flying before crashing back into the ground face-first. He teleports to the other’s side in an instant, planting one foot firmly in the middle of Arc’s back to prevent him from rising. “You’re not him, you’re not right, this whole timeline is a _failure.”_  


He forms another orb of energy. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll wipe all you little failures out. I’ll start over again. I’ll get it right this time. I’ll fix it. I have to fix it.” He fires the shot again, laughing all the while.

“I’ll fix it. I promised.”  



End file.
